


THE SUN LOVED YOU FIRST

by ergo_existence



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: M/M, covered in dust and blown out to post, fucked up original tag i win, prior s13-post12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 14:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5051182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ergo_existence/pseuds/ergo_existence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And it will melt you and caress you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	THE SUN LOVED YOU FIRST

**Author's Note:**

> In the meantime of an epicfic being written, I posted this baby. I hope you like it.

Wash has always been off the precipice of falling; metaphorically and literally, he’s been confronted by cars, by cliffs, stared down into the chasm of black too many times to count.

So what can he say? He’s been lucky. He might even go so far to say he fits in with the Reds and Blues for that very reason.

Of course, Agent Washington knows—better than anybody else—that sometimes luck lags behind and leaves you wondering when, when this string of happenstance will leave you.

And that is when you fall.

*

Armonia is sprawling in its size, but concentrated with buildings like any other city; skyscrapers are pressed together, wall to wall, and the monochrome brown is something Wash is less used to after trailing behind the Reds and Blues for so long, with their vivid pinks and purples, the aqua-colour he’s tried to place for so long (it varies in the light, see, so Wash spends copious amounts of times studying Tucker’s armour of the corner of his eye).

It’s relatively dilapidated too, he observes, as he sits in the quarters he’s been allotted; there’s little room, of course, as to be expected, but it’s certainly been a while since he’s had a room to his name. A room that he hasn’t happened to just come across on a banana split-esque ship, no—there’s paperwork, there’s official signatures and stamps. Wash has never been more delighted in his life to sign a piece of cream-coloured, standard-issue UNSC paper that he hasn’t seen for so long. He wonders when meetings will become exciting.

“Hey, Wash, what do you call a tiny orgasm?”

Though it’s not as if he has the room to himself.

He sighs, lets his shoulders slip. Relents. “What, Tucker?”

“Modicum.”

“Oh, _really_?” Wash says, incredulously, twisting his neck to look over at Tucker’s adjacent bunk. It takes all of two breaths to control himself and prevent a tiny, tiny smile to tilt his lips.

“Simmons used that word, and it was all I couldn’t do to radio you to tell you it,” Tucker says, not meeting Wash’s gaze, crossing his legs in a boyish gesture that juxtaposed the prominent muscles in his arms, legs, the mature jut of his cheekbones.

“I’m flattered.”

“Seriously. I wanna expand my vocabulary. What other possibilities are there fucking out there?”

“I’m sure enough to keep you entertained for the rest of our homely stay on Chorus,” Wash replies, biting the inside of his cheek and dusting lint out of his eye.

See, falling was inexplicably simple. There is the step or the jump you take, and then there is descent. There is wind.

It was a matter of time before it happened. Before Wash realised that, oh dear, _he had already hit the ground_.

“Pssh. Yeah. _Homely_. Like we even get fucking rec time,” Tucker says, breaking into the short reverie Wash slipped into. That was happening a lot, lately; he’d go from staring at Tucker to staring off into space, wondering how to reconcile the things in his head with the soldier—man, confidant, whatever—opposite him.

He’d never thought he’d be in this situation. Countless times he’s imagined it—just as many he’s spent wishing it to never happen.

But here he is.

“Earth to Wash. I got an idea. Let’s go complain to Kimball to see if we could organise some free time, you know, to keep the morale up,” Tucker continues, not mentioning Wash’s lack of response, the glazed over look that’s definitely taken over on his face. “Except we’ll go separately, so she doesn’t think you’re enabling my ‘bad ideas’ or something. Right?”

“You’ve thought it through thoroughly,” Wash muses. “So when do you propose we do this?”

“Now. Let’s go now.”

“When we’re supposed to be asleep, you mean.”

“Well, you’re not asleep, are you, Wash?” Tucker says, wry smirk sneaking into his expression. He side-eyes the two opposite beds, a foot off the end of the two Wash and he sat on. “And Sarge and Donut aren’t obviously done with their uniform duty they had, are they?”

“No. I’m concerned about that,” Wash says. “And I’m not particularly thrilled about rooming with Sarge, either. Not _cosy_ , that’s for certain.”

“Oh? Dude, really. That’s the first time you’ve told me.”

“I think it is, yes.”

“You got that sarcasm,” Tucker says, leaning forward. “Right? Like. That’s _totally_ not the first fucking time you’ve said it. It’s like the fiftieth. You literally have not stopped commenting on it. At all.”

“I’m just telling you, of all the people you could’ve suggested to room with—and I’m just, I’m surprised he dare share with two other Blues.”

With a cough and a clearing of his throat, Tucker begins his best Sarge impersonation: _“I ain’t sharin’ wi’ Grif while I’m in this damn city. Rather share wi’ two deadliest soldiers here. Other than Mrs. Silverback Gorrilla, though. She migh’ kill me in my sleep._ ” It’s gruff but there’s an inflection of Tucker left in it, that Wash cannot help letting a soft, hearty laugh through. For a moment, for a glimmer, he catches a soft smile resting on Tucker’s face.

“That was terrible.”

“Not as bad as yours, dude.”

“I don’t know, I would say yours…has a certain edge of _Lavernius_ that I can detect too easily.”

“Oh? I got a certain brand of Lavernius, do I? Huh. Wanna taste the rest of the collection under the brand?”

Wash rolls his eyes and wraps his arms around his knees, sitting in a position that’s more relaxed than he’s ever been, for the longest time.

So there’s a big, big war on the horizon. Well, technically they’re already in a big, big war. There’s a big, big, _big_ war coming.

But he needs this right now. He’s never let himself just fall. _Sometimes_ , he decides, _sometimes a fall is cushioned_.

“C’mon, dude. This is the first time I’ve ever seen you in bed this early,” Tucker says, an edge of care creeping into his tone. “Get some fuckin’ proper sleep.”

“So it’s you telling me what to do now, is it?”

“I’m the _Captain_. Captain’s fucking orders. I want my shoes polished tomorrow morning, too.”

“So you’re into giving orders. Let me know how that goes for you,” Wash says, releasing his arms, stepping off the end of his bunk to pull back the grey, scratchy covers.

“I’ll order _you_ around some more, if you’re into that, Wash.” Tucker winks, quickly hopping off his bed on the other side, out of Wash’s reach. His laughter peals brightly, and Wash isn’t even annoyed, not one bit.

*

He should be clinging to the edge, though. He shouldn’t be freely loosening his fingers, shouldn’t be anticipating the breezy land.

Except he is. He is, of course he is.

He slips into drills like bees do to flowers.

“Ten laps around the perimeter,” he says, projecting his voice to the four squads, their respective captains missing or standing to the side, spectating. “And an extra two for _Captain_ Tucker.”

“I _fucking_ told you, dude, I’m a Captain, you don’t just order me around—”

“We save _you_ ordering _me_ around for the bedroom,” Wash says, smartly, the remark biting his stomach after it already left his mouth. There are moments where the snideness would be acceptable; in front of the platoons led by the most insufferable people he’s ever known, is not a suitable moment.

But it certainly sends Tucker on his way with a hollered ‘fuck you!’ which settles neatly in Wash’s shoulders, liquid calm running down his spine.

He’s still aimless. He’s falling and he doesn’t know where he’s going to land.

Neat routine consolidates him. That’s his identity; he is _I’ll Give You Ten Laps for Insubordination_ , he is _My Voice Still Sometimes Squeaks Like I’m Going Through Puberty 2.0_ , he is _You Do Not Get A Break_ , he is _Tucker, For God’s Sake, [insert questioning of dubious action here]_.

It’s good. It’s safe and wholesome and he’s hardass Agent Washington. He’s not the baby of the squad, not anymore.

“Okay,” Tucker begins, out of breath but holding himself upright, a certain improvement Wash notes to comment on. “Fuck you. Fuck you so bad. I should be doing more important shit.”

“Such as?” Wash responds wryly, head tilted to the side. “What’s more important than this, building on your endurance and agility? You’re improving, you know.”

“Fuck that. Fuck this. I told you, dude, just ‘cause I’ve got this sweet sword and these nice muscles, doesn’t mean I’m cut out for Freelancer shit.”

“And yet.”

“And yet what?”

Wash plays with his fingers for a few moments, looks away, then back. “Yet you’ve become…a good soldier. Tucker, I wouldn’t say you’re exactly to Carolina’s level, but you’re _competent_.”

“Oh, shit, not more of this. What next? Gonna rain down more half-hearted compliments? Shit. Wash, your hair looks great today.”

“I have my helmet on.”

“Exactly, dude.”

“Oh.”

“Did you think I was actually complimenting you?” Tucker snorts and turns his gaze over to the other soldiers, Jensen staving off an asthma attack and Palomo holding a stitch.

Wash inspects the rounds in his assault rifle.

“Oh my god. You took that fuckin’ seriously. Context, dude.”

“I didn’t take it seriously,” Wash mutters, dragging his gaze back up to meet the gold of Tucker’s helmet.

The training room was as singular-coloured as the rest of the city, but when he stood in front of the captain before him, everything was alight in Technicolour.

“Well, I’m sure your hair doesn’t look that bad. Beneath the helmet, that is,” Tucker says, in the same hushed tone, low. He kicks at a ground, nothing loose enough to be dislodged by the lazy, nervous movement.

Wash says nothing.

“I mean, you gotta _prove_ it to me, obviously. Just assuming here.”

“It’s beautifully tousled, Tucker. Trust me. I style it _every_ day.”

“Was that non-derisive sarcasm? That was slightly humourous? From you? Stop the fuckin’ press. Holy shit.”

“It might have been,” Wash says, a small smirk growing, his hand tapping a happy tune on his hip. When he removes himself from the trance of Tucker, he yells out, “Now give me twenty!”

And Tucker says to that, “But not for me, right?”

“Yes, for you too.”

“So even if I compliment you, I don’t get a fucking break.”

“Were you just buttering me up to get a rest? _Tsk tsk_ ,” Wash says, taking a step towards Tucker. “I rarely give or take breaks.”

The second-meaning behind it leaves Tucker silent, who then kneels down—Wash’s mind does a stop and start that’s crude—and he begins counting squats: one, two…the rest of the numbers meaningless as Wash is glad for the visor hiding his silly, silly schoolboy grin.

He’s not sure when this metamorphosis happened, if it happened at all, if he’s even changed one bit. But he grins, anyway. And he jumps.

*

And he jumps. How he _jumps_.

It’s night and it’s silent, again, and Wash has adopted the habit of slipping to bed early—before the huckleberry-addled colonel drags himself away from the vehicular maintenance area, and Donut stops designing and redesigning the more efficient system of cleaning and prepping the army’s armour—and so here he is.

Tucker follows his habits quietly, too. That’s the unsaid. That Tucker will watch, join in on the training regimen; take his lunch break at the same time.

“Not like I _wanna_ be around you,” Tucker had said one other day, snorting without any real cut to it. “It’s just. You know. Convenient. Don’t wanna come up with a plan for myself.”

Wash had nodded, sagely, as though he understood perfectly.

He pulls himself away from that memory—a regular behaviour—and watches the fluorescent light coating the room flicker, slowly turns his head to where Tucker lay on hid bed, one arm around his head, the other twisting a corkscrew curl around it. It was miraculous how much hair Tucker kept contained within his helmet.

“You checking me out?” Tucker asks without turning to Wash, his legs fidgeting on the cheap duvet. A hidden half-smile creeps onto Wash’s face.

“No, Tucker,” Wash says, humouring him, “I only do that when you can’t clearly see me.”

“That’s kinda pervy.”

“Is it? I’ll have to rectify that behaviour, then.” Wash is ambivalent about even continuing this trail of conversation, but the lethargy he feels in his bones argues a strong point. He’ll go along. It’s nicer, lighter.

“Dunno. You could stop looking and start _touching_.”

Wash laughs, feels it grow in his throat and bubble up, feels a smile grow, and when the smooth chuckle dies down, Tucker’s staring at him, staring at him, like he’s Icarus and Wash is the sun.

He supposes that he will burn Tucker’s wax wings, eventually, and he wipes the grin on his face away and says, “I’ll take a raincheck.”

Every nerve him is screaming to engage Tucker, to reach across and ask how he is, what he’s doing, how he’s settling into Armonia, whether he likes one MRE more than the other—

And so all he does is let it all fall together, for another day, another time, another universe—melodramatic as always. The memories come into a neat line—Tucker’s radiant grin, sunshine gleaming off his back in the heat of the canyon they were stranded in, the first time Wash saw him after they were split between the Rebels and Feds, respectively, every tucked away moment suddenly gleaming before him.

He does as devils do. Fall.

Fall in love.

(The words sit in his stomach. How cliché. How done. And here he was, glaring up at the cliff’s edge that he’d stumbled over).

*

Everything is sliced into neat snippets. Staring at the wall and remembering the time on his HUD. Rearranging his face into a cool, composed expression when he steps in to mediate Kimball and Doyle’s meetings—not even a week settling into Armonia, and there’d been enough spittle and vitriol to fuel their vehicles for days (as Sarge insisted they could literally run on. He’d been stopped before he could attempt the conversion). Slipping into bed and falling asleep before he comes into view of a certain aqua soldier.

Palomo greets Wash, a stagnant, frigid Armonia morning in the training room, helmet off and puppy grin bright and radiant. “Morning, Wash!”

He sucks in a breath.

“Good morning, lieutenant,” he says back, briskly, removing the clip from his rifle, inserting it again, a nervous habit. He can’t even remember when it had developed; there was always him and that shudder of the gun, in and out, every anxious memory narrated by it.

“S _o_ ,” Palomo says, dragging out the vowel for an annoying second or two. “You and Tucker.”

“Tucker and I?” Wash replies without turning his head up, rifle in his lap and methodical movement numbing his senses.

“Well, I’m just sayin’, and well so is Jensen, she’s pretty worried, and maybe Matthews but he kinda worries about everything—” the lieutenant stutters out hastily, words dropping from his mouth in quick succession. He shuffles a hand through his messy, amateur-shorn hair. “And uh. Well. We’re all worried. A little. You and Tucker kinda just stopped? Talking? Ish? And we’re _maybe_ wondering why, a little, you know, it’s not really our business and uh. Yeah. Hey Wash, can I go get a drink?”

“No drinks, not until later,” Wash says, addressing the last of Palomo’s nervous queries. “And what, exactly, are you and the lieutenants concerned about?”

“I just said—oh well, _okay_ , so you guys used to chat, and like, do cool stuff. Now you don’t? That’s weird. To us. I mean. Weird.”

“It’s been two days.”

“Two days is a _long time_ in cat time.”

For a moment, Wash struggles with a response, feeling his eyebrows raise in question.

“Well see, if a two year old cat is the equivalent of a twenty-five year old human, their days are longer, right? You know like, they mean more time. So a cat day is longer than a human day.”

“I’m not even sure where you got that from,” Wash says, incredulous, dumbfounded, the obsessive movement ceased now. “But I’ll…talk to Tucker, if it eases your attention away from my relations back to your training schedule.”

“Yeah, by the way, by _relations_ , do you mean like, _sexual re_ —”

“You have five laps around the perimeter now, considering the ten minutes you arrived early. Enjoy it,” he cuts over, before there’s a chance for that sentence to even go anywhere.

He’s also somewhat embarrassed his dramatic ‘give Tucker the cold shoulder’ routine lasted all of two days—cat or human—and he was already a) being noticed and b) wanting to immediately return to Tucker’s side, to burn him up and taste fire on his tongue.

So inwardly, he pep-talks himself, relives the adolescence he never really had, not properly, and takes his helmet off. He even styles it a little—as much as he ever could—considering the overgrowth of a fringe he had now.

Tucker arrives two minutes and twenty-eight seconds late, not that Wash was ardently watching the timer on his HUD.

“You’re late, Captain; you should be setting an example,” he says, the first time he’s been roused to admonish Tucker for his apparent lack of punctuality in the last two days.

“So the great and mighty fucking Agent finally speaks again,” Tucker replies, sauntering up besides Wash where he stood in front of the platoons. “To what do I owe this goddamn honour?”

“You owe Palomo,” he says promptly, leveling his gaze to Tucker’s impassive helmet glaring back.

“Ugh, fuck you, Palomo,” Tucker groans. “I told you not to fuckin’ talk to him.”

“Hey, you were— _you_ were the one complaining about Wash ignoring you! I did the right thing! Look, he’s talking to you,” Palomo objects, voice becoming hysteric in a matter of little time.

“So you chatted to Palomo about my ‘ _ignoring you_ ’ instead of coming directly to me?” Wash asks, despite knowing he wouldn’t have even let Tucker do so.

Because he has fallen. Wash has fallen. There is no objectivity anymore, no distance that could be allowed when they were on the run before they came to Armonia. Here they have a military routine where romance had blossomed, insidious grass growing amongst the pavement, an indolent pest destroying a harvest. Love is destructive. Wash knows this.

Tucker huffs and says, “You kept fuckin’ running away.”

“Let’s save personal matters for later.”

“Or how about you explain the sudden fucking change?”

Wash decides the best thing to do is run away from his problems.

*

“ _Wash_ ,” Tucker hisses, shoving Wash’s shoulder in bed. “Wash, you dumb fuck!”

“ _What_?” he asks, blearily, shoving back his blanket in a sudden, anxious motion. “What’s happened? Turn the light on.”

“Nothing’s happened except you and your dumb, ignorant ass,” Tucker continues, hopping onto the bed fully. “Nothing’s fucking happened because you keep going.”

“Oh, not _this_.” A yawn escapes Wash, rubbing his face, eyes adjusting to the dark, focussing on Tucker’s clear, black skin, his ever-perfect curls, his lovely—

Wash is still in half-sleep mania, not helped by the love-driven craze Tucker induces.

“Yes, _this_ , asshole,” Tucker says, arms squarely crossed now, legs either side of Wash’s feet. “You’re gonna explain how you go between cracking _actual_ _jokes_ with me to treating me like you don’t even know me.”

“It was two days!”

“That’s a long time, without you.”

The words hang, heavy and limp, Wash’s breath hitching at the possible meaning, at the possible inflection, at the _without you_.

“Okay, okay, so that was—” Tucker starts and stops, a clear conflict on his face, then he lowly whispers, almost to himself, “So you know, when you were locked up with the Feds, I came and busted your ass out, right?”

“Sure.”

That’s what Wash can manage.

“Okay, you know what it was like to go from you ordering me around to you just being gone? It _sucked_. It sucked and I wanted to get you back. Without a doubt. I knew I had to. I know I’m great, but I’ve never been a knight in shining fucking armour.”

Wash can’t think of anything intelligent to add, so he lies there, frozen. It’s platonic, he insists, _platonic_. Tucker was driven by a need for a leader. Anybody would be.

“And the kicker is? I didn’t miss you ordering me around. That bit sucked. Who likes laps?” Tucker coughs and rearranges himself, kicking Wash’s legs away with ease so they crease in, him assuming the space, Wash now sitting up. No chance of going back to sleep easily now.

There’s a dim moonlight glow through the square window. Two moons, sitting harmoniously beside each other.

“I _missed_ you.”

Wash swallows.

“I mean I fucking missed you. Can you believe it? Distance makes the heart grow fonder and all that. When I fuckin’ saw you, standing there with your gun pointed—I had a gun pointed at me and this is what I thought—I remember just thinking, _thank fucking god he’s alive_. Because you _matter_ , and shit, that’s…that’s pretty fucked. And not in the way I like things to be fucked.”

“So you’re against this…feeling,” Wash finishes for him, avoiding Tucker’s gaze, fiddling with his hands. “How do you want things to turn out, then?”

“Dude. Seriously. You need help.”

“It’s not an illness, Tucker. You should know that.”

“What? Fucking bisexuality or whatever? Not that. I mean this is the part where we kiss.”

Wash’s heart does this funny little kick and jump and he wonders why his mouth twists into an impish grin, one he hasn’t smiled in years, one that lain dormant for so long.

He doesn’t have time to analyse it before Tucker’s face moves closer, before his jaw his held just so, the right pressure, and then their lips meet—a damned meeting, Wash has fallen and the landing is soft, soft, hell is warm and he is alight. Of course, their noses bump, at first, and Tucker laughs into the kiss.

It’s chaste, all things considered— _Tucker_ considered—and when they pull back, Wash murmurs, “We really should be asleep.”

Tucker presses his forehead to Wash’s and he’s pretty damn sure by this point he’s a sap, he’s the biggest sap in the world: ladies and gentleman, cold Agent Washington has fallen into the deep-down-below and wants to hold Lavernius Tucker ‘til Death turns up and knocks on his door and asks where the hell he’s been.

It’s not so bad, falling.

*

“And you have four grenades, all plasma because Sarge is better with the frags, and you’ve—you’ve got enough bullets to last you at least the three days of the skirmish,” Wash says, double-checking and triple-checking Tucker’s carry-on luggage, so to speak. He breathes. He’s more nervous for this than Tucker is.

“Yep, that’s the fourth time you’ve gone over it,” Tucker says from where he stood against the wall, casual, helmet under his arm. The afternoon glow reaches in, even through the hardened shell of the armoury’s supply shelter out the back of the main military setup in Armonia.

“Surety never hurt anyone.”

“Except frazzled your fucking nerves.”

“That’s—that’s a fair point,” Wash concedes, looking up to meet Tucker’s concerned stare. There’s a faint smile lingering on Tucker’s dry lips, the one Wash only catches when no one else is watching, when there’s just Wash and Tucker and nothing else, only aqua and steel and yellow. It’s a secret.

Tucker steps closer over to Wash and rests a hand on his shoulder, out of any armour and only in his Kevlar. He’d hurriedly left their quarters to begin preparing for the assault on the mercenary station early that morning, foregoing the armour he knew he wouldn’t need, because he wasn’t going with Tucker.

(Rather: Tucker knew if once he’d suited himself up, he’d have followed Tucker anywhere. So Tucker’s solution was, hide Wash’s armour. It was a foolproof plan).

“Look, Wash. I’ll be fine. Carolina will keep our shit together,” Tucker says, already detecting the worry etched in Wash’s creased forehead. “And Church’ll be there to bitch about everything and anything. Fun for the whole goddamn family.”

“You promise me that you’ll come back. Safe.”

He sighs and shakes his head, but says, “I promise.”

Wash has never had anybody promise before—he’s always got _I’ll be fine_ or I _don’t make promises_ , a cocky York behind the latter when Wash had been on the cusp of still being classified as ‘new’ but had grown a friendship with the other Freelancers.

He smiles. He’s got into the habit—it’s infectious when Tucker’s around, and it’s a disease he never wants to cure.

“And you know I’ll wait for you, I’ll go after you even if Kimball says so otherwise.”

“I know,” Tucker says, “you’ve said that all day. And yesterday. And when Kimball assigned us this mission. You’re acting like a worried mom, you know.”

“That’s because I am worried. There’s certainly nothing maternal about this.”

“It’s ‘cause you still want my bones to jump when I get back. Or rather, jump on my bo _ner_. Don’t know why it isn’t that, but whatever.”

With little grace Wash grabs Tucker and kisses him, like it’s the last time, like it’s always the last time because Wash has only so much luck and he only has so much time left, and he can’t help it when Tucker’s saying things like that.

“Better let the others finally come in and get their shit, can’t organise this without them actually getting their stuff,” Tucker says, pulling away from the kiss, his focus dropping to Wash’s chest.

“That means we have to say goodbye now.”

“Duh? So make it a good one.” 

Wash ducks down for a kiss again, breath still ragged from the previous one. 

“In a while,” Wash says, lowly, almost a whisper, hands grabbing for Tucker’s waist, uncovered by his armour. He grabs tightly. He holds. He holds because he is greedy and he will drink Tucker up, when he returns, because he will.

There’s even a whispered, feather-like declaration of something important and good because he must point out that he’s fallen and why his chest feels this way—it’s not everyday he’ll bid adieu to the cliff-side, and he supposes, he may as well make an affair of the whole thing.

Readying himself into the jeep later, Tucker turns around from his seat and he doesn’t say goodbye because they already said that, but he does say, “I promised,” and so Wash is satisfied, momentarily, before the Warthog is tearing off, Sarge at the helm—insistently—and there they are, tearing off into the distance, Wash left with drills to run and a petulant Grif behind him whining about _not enough sleep_ and _naps should be compulsory_.

“Um, sir?” Palomo’s hesitant voice drifts up behind Wash, snapping him from the glazed-over moment of _Tucker and the Horizon_ , “Can we skip today?”

“Absolutely not!” Wash says, jovially. “We’re starting on carrying sandbags today. It’s imperative to exercise your core muscles for when you need to carry an injured teammate in combat.”

He says it like he’s reading it from a passage, and he might be, his memory is sometimes tricky.

It’s been crystal clear in Armonia, though, bright and bold where Lavernius Tucker was written into his hands, his mind.

So he fell.

Cliffs really didn’t like him, metaphorical ones at least.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, as always. It's been over a year since I first posted here and I didn't even notice. How time flies by. Love goes on.


End file.
